Workers saw their wages increase faster than the cost of living in April for the first time in two years, as the impact of last year’s sales-tax hike faded. Real pay rose 0.1 percent from a year earlier, the labor ministry said on Tuesday. ...

Japan’s average monthly real wage plunged 3.0 percent in fiscal 2014, marking the largest fall on record and the fourth year of decline, as last year’s consumption tax hike took its toll, the labor ministry said Tuesday. However, in nominal terms the average monthly ...

An annual survey has found that a record 48.3 percent of the responding companies in are planning salary hikes for regular workers in fiscal 2015, credit research company Teikoku Databank Ltd. said on Monday. The proportion was higher than 46.4 percent seen in the ...

Increases in the cost of living outpaced annual earnings that rose for the first time in four years in 2014 as the Abe administration sought to reflate the economy. Average earnings climbed 0.8 percent last year while pay, adjusted for inflation, fell 2.5 percent, ...

Nomura Holdings Inc. on Tuesday said it will raise pay for about 3,700 employees at its domestic brokerage unit to attract and retain staff, and to support the economy. Base pay at Nomura Securities Co. will climb an average 2.3 percent from April, said ...

The Bank of Japan gave the first pay raise in nine years to its Policy Board and other executives, backing Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda’s efforts to reflate the world’s third-biggest economy. Kuroda’s salary will rise to ¥34.7 million in the year that started in April, ...

Average monthly pay, including bonuses, rose 2.6 percent in July to ¥369,846 from a year earlier, marking a rise of 2 percent or more for the first time in a decade, the labor ministry said Tuesday. Bonuses and other nonregular payments surged 7.1 percent ...

A Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry survey revealed Friday that 64.5 percent of the nation’s small companies have decided to raise pay this fiscal year, up from 56.8 percent the previous year. “The virtuous cycle of the economy is having a wider impact,” ...

Panasonic Corp. is planning to raise the pay scale for its employees at this spring’s labor-management wage talks for the first time since 2008, sources said Tuesday. The electronics-maker took into consideration commodity price rises and the imminent sales tax hike, which will likely ...

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. plans to raise salaries for about 5,000 junior staff to offset swelling costs as the government prepares to increase the consumption tax. Japan’s second-largest brokerage is considering increasing monthly pay by about 3 percent, targeting employees in their 20s and ...

A tug of war between the central and local governments is expected to resume as the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has started studying a new approach to pay cuts for civil servants. In January, Finance Minister Taro Aso asked local governments to ...

A fifth of Hong Kong’s population is living in poverty, underscoring the challenge Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying faces in seeking to narrow a record wealth gap. About 1.3 million people, or 19.6 percent of the population, were below the poverty line last year, according ...